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Hiku said:
Farsala said:

Don't think you got the point. That is using skewed statistics to paint a narrative. When I could easily do the same thing in the opposite way.

The question is why only police? Why not blame poverty instead of guns? Why not take into account density (which also contributes to poverty)? etc. etc.

FYI I don't even really support guns, its just the arguments seem weak.

How is that particular comparison using skewed statistics then? It's easy to just say things without backing them up. I'm sure there may be some factors worth taking into consideration. But none that would conceivably make up for the fact that USA's population isn't 7000 times bigger than Norways. Not even close.

And I'm not just looking at police. That was just one of many examples.
Another example isn't comparing itself to any other nation. It just shows the difference gun control can make in a particular country.
In Australia, before the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 they had 10 massacres in the 10 years prior to that. Basically 1 massacre per year for 10 years.
But in 1996 they "banned" guns. And in the 20 years that followed, they had 0 massacres.
You don't have to compare to another country to see that it made a noticable difference.

Not saying USA's situation is identical to Australia by any means. But developed nations where guns are essentially banned seem to have significantly fewer instances of gun violence, and even homocides per capita. In every country I've looked into so far that appears to be the case. And that includes nations that previously allowed guns.
That said I'm not implying that USA all of a sudden banning guns would be a good idea. If they ever wanted to get to that point I imagine they'd have to take a much longer road than some other countries because of the number of guns they already have in circulation, their situation with organised crime, etc.

I don't mind if you support guns or not as long as you explain you explain your reasoning.

I don't really support the guns, but just because something worked for Australia or other widely different countries, doesn't mean it would work for USA.

USA is after all unlike any other country with not only tons of guns, but a high population and that makes for some decent amount of gun violence, especially in poverty places.

Then take my Iowa example from earlier and you got a bunch of people with tons of guns and very little gun violence.

While Australia is not a lot of people without  a lot of guns and violence.

palou said:
Farsala said:
People comparing Gun violence in USA to less population dense countries like Australia and Canada is ridiculous.

It be like me taking a single state and comparing it with them. In fact lets do just that.

Iowa- 90,000 guns /100,000 people, .71 murder/ 100,000 = 126,760 guns per murder
Canada- 30,800 guns/ 100,000, .38/ 100,000= 81,052 guns per murder
Australia - 21,000 guns/ 100,000, .16/100,000= 131,250 guns per murder

Looks like more guns don't always equal more violence, and this is with proximity to more dangerous states unlike Australia. Still we could take it a step further since Iowa is a lot more population dense then these ridiculously small population densities of Canada and Australia.

Iowa- 55person/Sqmi
Australia - 8.3
Canada- 10.2

But I don't feel like doing more calculations, it would be too easy.
In short, pretty uncomparable, we can skew stats all we like to paint a better narrative.

Also I feel like this only gets talked about so often is because everything in USA gets on the media, but a lot of things in other countries are simply ignored.

Disclaimer: Stats may not be perfect or completely correct, and could be outdated, but you get the point.

"Looks like more guns don't always equal more violence"

 

How in the world did you get that conclusion from that data? I mean, you can find other examples, but the ones you took clearly shows a correlation between gun ownership and murder. Guns per murder would only matter if you were trying to show a direct linear correlation, which no has ever said to be the case.

 

Lack of density also seems like a bad argument (I don't actually see how that should contribute significantly to violence - in Canada, as in everywhere else, almost everyone lives in urban areas - around Toronto, Montreal, and the West Coast. Who cares how much empty space is between these urban areas.)

 

Notice also that the average European country has a popultion density higher than the US. Germany, with a murder rate of about 0.8, has a density of 226/km2, which would put it between the 5th and 6th densesest US states. Also, 0.8 is bellow the murder rate of all US states, according to the most recent data:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicide_rate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The correlation isn't clear though. Iowans have 3 times as much guns as Canada but only 1.86 more gun violence. So on average more guns does not equal more gun violence as everyone seems to argue against. In other words, getting rid of the guns does not neccesarily mean less gun violence.

And by population density I tend to think poverty and thus more conflict. I take it as a minor correlation, for example USA as a whole vs Puerto Rico or NYC or Detroit etc.

That data is homicide rate  including non firearms, I am trying to discuss if more guns= more gun murder rate.

I need to sleep now though.